David Mamet, famous for his in-your-face characters, brutal and frequently raunchy dialogue, and deliberate, staccato prose, would seem an unlikely choice to write and direct a screen adaptation of British playwright Terence Rattigan’s genteel drama about injustice. But the Pulitzer Prize-winning author (for Glengarry Glen Ross), whose body of work…

Genius can be a terrible, destructive gift. Jacqueline du Pre, the brilliant British cellist who enraptured audiences in the Sixties and Seventies with her musical passion and intensity, lived a life of great renown and acclaim, but also one of harrowing loneliness and emotional turmoil. Her story is movingly told…

British actress Jane Horrocks is thrice-gifted: She can act, she can sing, and she can sing like Judy Garland. And like Shirley Bassey, Marilyn Monroe, Marlene Dietrich, and a host of other legendary performers. Horrocks’s ability to mimic the singing and speaking voices of these artists lies at the heart…

Directed by Walter Salles (1995’s Foreign Land), the Brazilian film Central Station (Central do Brasil) concerns the relationship between a homeless nine-year-old boy and the insensitive, acerbic woman who reluctantly agrees to help him find his father. Winner of the Golden Bear for Best Film at the 1998 Berlin Film…

Given the manipulative tendencies of many mainstream pictures, Stepmom could have easily slipped into a sticky morass of sentimentality and melodrama. Instead, it proves to be a genuinely affecting movie that approaches its adult themes with intelligence, maturity, and rare authenticity. The film stars Susan Sarandon as Jackie, a divorced…

Even students of English history may have trouble sorting out the palace intrigues and intragovernmental conspiracies that fill Elizabeth, the handsome new production about Queen Elizabeth I’s ascension to the British throne in 1558. With the bewitching Australian actress Cate Blanchett in the title role, the film follows Elizabeth’s transformation…

Well, now we know why the term “bored to death” was invented. Meet Joe Black takes an interesting idea — Death assumes human form and comes to Earth to learn about human existence — and reduces it to a flat, uninspired, interminable, slow movie. Not only slow but long, a…

You don’t have to give a damn about sports to find Without Limits engrossing. Like all the best films, it is really about character. In this case the character is that of Steve Prefontaine, the legendary track star of the 1970s who held every American running record between 2000 and…

A riveting but darkly disturbing thriller, Apt Pupil isn’t easy to sit through. The subject matter itself proves deeply unsettling, while two brief acts of sadism are so horrifying as to be unwatchable. And yet this brutal film borders on the brilliant. Beautifully structured and edited, with a chilling central…

Leelee Sobieski is a mouthful of a name (40 years ago studio moguls would have made her change it to something short and unassuming) but get used to it because the young actress behind it is going to be getting a lot of attention. She almost single-handedly carries A Soldier’s…

The idea of destiny, especially the notion that two people are fated to meet and fall in love, is a load of crap, but a surprising number of people buy it. Probably for that reason it has proven to be a fairly popular component in movie romances, City of Angels…

Judging by the number of uninspired and derivative films we see these days, creating something truly fresh and imaginative on-screen is more difficult than turning a pumpkin into a carriage. But that’s exactly what director Andy Tennant and his marvelous cast and crew do in Ever After, the most magical…

Walt Disney Pictures has a smart and highly profitable business strategy: Re-release the studio’s proven hits every seven years or so, thereby reaching a new generation of kids — and making another tidy bundle of dollars in the process. Well, this time around the Mouse House has decided to remake…

Theresa Connelly’s feature directorial debut, Polish Wedding, is a complete misfire. What is meant to be a somewhat farcical — but also fairytale-like — midsummer night’s sex comedy ends up a tedious, uninvolving affair, burdened with a slim premise, grating characters, and poorly realized humor. The film concerns the various…

The winds that sweep across the Sahara kick up ferocious sandstorms. Dunes change shape by the hour, flying particles blind the eye, and all reason and sense of direction can be lost. In such disorienting surroundings, reality and hallucination converge; the most inexplicable, unimaginable events can occur. Passion in the…

Rule number one: When crafting a thriller, make sure the audience can relate to, identify with, or empathize with at least one of the characters. Rule number two: Make sure the characters’ motivations are clear. Fail in either area — or, worse, in both — and you end up with…

Gwyneth Paltrow gets another chance to show off her letter-perfect English accent in Sliding Doors, an engaging romantic comedy that employs a rather novel narrative device: After introducing the main characters and setting up the basic story, the film splits into two separate but parallel plot lines. It’s a twist…